Changing What I Can

Last Wednesday I had the joy of taking the day off of work & I was just a stay at home wife for the day.  It was wonderful.  And weird.  And a little awkward because we had men at the house installing central air conditioning.  I always feel a little funny when there are strange, albeit nice, men wandering around our house all day.  Am I the only one?

I did really enjoy my day & I did not get nearly as much done as I thought I would, but that is the story of my life & probably always will be.  One major thing I did get done was make a couple of batches of granola bars.  I've been making some peanut butter chocolate chip bars for Mike for a long time so I made some of those.  Then I remembered that I had a bag of dried cranberries in the pantry that were *ahem* six days or so past date & I thought maybe it was time to use them!  So I made just half of a batch with the cranberries, some chopped almonds, white chocolate chips, & every last scraping of honey I could get from the three, four, five mostly empty honey bottles that I had hoarded in the pantry.  Once again, am I the only one??

Anyway, they turned out great!  I'm sure you can tell by the photo below.  

My food photography skills are super impressive, aren't they? 

 And just so they wouldn't feel left out, here's a pic of the 

peanut butter chocolate chip bars.  

Another outstanding photo, eh?

I intended to apologize for the lackluster photos & the fact that I can't really share the granola bar recipe.  But you already know I'm not a photog.  And you know I'm not a true foodie.  This isn't my recipe & I couldn't tell you the source where I got it.  So I'll just keep being me without the photog or foodie label & tell you something else that's a little more important anyway.

When I make these granola bars they never turn out the same way twice.  Good thing Mike isn't picky, huh?  It's mostly because I'm not a good measurer of sticky things like peanut butter & honey.  It's also because I like to fiddle around with recipes to make them a little more of what I have in mind.  But I have been burnt by this drive to tinker.  Sometimes I really screw things up.  I have learned that with cooking there are some things you can change and some things you can't.  With these granola bars I don't usually mess with the honey/butter/oats/rice crispies amounts.  These ingredients are kind of like the foundation & you just can't mess with them too much.  But you can go crazy deciding how you want to flavor things up - peanut butter & chocolate, cranberries & white chocolate & almonds, cinnamon raisin, & whatever else you can dream up.  Some changes are really good & some just aren't.

This whole granola thing got me to thinking about other things I can't change.  Things I can't change & that I regret have been a real roadblock for me lately.  I have so much guilt that I carry around about things I wish I could go back & change with Mom.  Nothing dramatic - she wasn't upset with me & I wasn't upset with her.  I just wish that I had made more time.  That we had taken more opportunities to be together & go places & do things that I know she had wanted to do.  We used to talk about going to Alaska with Mackinaw Island as a Plan B if Alaska didn't work out.  We used to sit & watch silly movies together on Sunday afternoons.  I wish I could go back & help her more, hug her more, talk with her more...  

I know I'm not supposed to dwell on these thoughts.  They are a waste of energy & I just get really sad & yeah, I cry.  I know what Mom would say.  First she would say to quit crying; crying only gets your eyes all red & your nose stuffed up.  And then she would say that if I feel like there was something truly wrong with my behavior I need to confess it, move on & with the Lord's help, try to do better.  Because sometimes just moving on with the Lord's strength to help you is all the change that you can manage to make.